Get ready for a post full of the most perfectly Pinterest-y pictures I could manage! Ladies and Gentlemen…I present to you…the greatest rock and roll-inspired music room in the history of cheap DIY makeovers (if only because the competition is pretty minimal)…THE BOOM BOOM ROOM!!!

You know, I’ve been worried about this blog post for several weeks now. Because — and here’s the cool part — this project is THE LAST PROJECT in The Boom Boom Room. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) So I needed the project to turn out well, which on its own was cause for concern, because it’s something I’ve never attempted before and has a reputation for being unfriendly to beginners. But my real concern was the actual blog post. Because after nearly 7 months of Boom Boom Room blog posts inspired by rock song titles, I had no. idea. what song I could possibly use for a post about tufting an ottoman.

I was really stretching my imagination to find a rock and roll song that might, just maybe, if I could take some serious liberties with the English language, might actually sound like it had something to do with upholstery. Let me repeat that: I needed to find a rock song about upholstery.

Have you ever seen a DIY tutorial and thought, “That’s so cool! And it sounds so easy! I bet I could do that!”

I fell into that trap this week.

It’s mostly Jenny‘s fault. She was all like, “I wrapped a table in leather and studded it with brass nails!” And I was all like, “That’s so cool! And it sounds so easy! I bet I could do that! All I need now is a piece of furniture to wrap in leather and stud with brass nails!”

So when I looked at the pictures from my last post and felt like the piano was punching me in the eyeballs, I knew I had found a piece of furniture worthy of leather and studs.

And the desk turned out so totally rad, that I made some totally rad shelves to go with it.

I had made that desk and shelves because, 11 months ago, I wanted to get rid of an old table, and Chris wouldn’t let me because he wanted a place to sit and a surface to write on in his music room. And I feared that if I let him use that table in his music room, his tornado-alley style of organizing and decorating would eventually lead the music room to look like this:

And the obsessively compulsive, anally retentive, a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place control freak in me feared that this would end our marriage.Continue Reading

That’s right — less than one year after I found myself in the fetal position, crying and swearing that I would never again strip another door, I have somehow managed to strip and refinish the doors in The Boom Boom Room. And that means that today’s rock-and-roll inspiration comes from The Allman Brothers.

Imagine this, if you will: Chris is outside, mowing the lawn, wearing earbuds, minding his own business, just doin’ chores and listenin’ to tunes. Suddenly, I come running out of the house and scare the crap out of him because he’s totally not expecting to see me outside of the house in my pajamas at 2 in the afternoon.

“Hey, Craigslist Master! I need you to find something for me.”

Chris: (removes his earbuds and shuts down the lawn mower in a patient and not-at-all annoyed manner, as if to say, “Go on.”)

Me: “I need you to find me a bunch of cheap microphones.”

Chris: “Okay………..I’m kind of busy…”

Me: “I don’t need them right now. I’m just telling you now, before I forget. There’s plenty of time. I just know it takes time to find good deals on stuff. So, you know…keep your eyes open.”

Chris: “Okay…………Like, how many is ‘a bunch’ Like, 5 or 6?”

Me: “I don’t know, as many as you can find? Like, 20? Maybe more?”

Chris: (gives me a look that I will interpret here as, “20 microphones? You think it’s that easy to find 20 microphones just lying around?”)

Me: “If it makes it easier, they don’t have to all look the same. Because I’m going to spray paint them all. Gold. Also, they don’t actually have to be working microphones. They just have to look like microphones. Like microphone skeletons, that’s all I really need.”

Chris: (I have to give him credit, he held off asking this for waaaay longer than I thought he would) “WHY?”

You know, this may surprise some of you, but when you tell people that you are going to paint a carpet, the most common reaction is a mixture of doubt and disbelief, with a little bit of “I’m not sure I heard that correctly” thrown in for good measure.

Of course, there are some of you that would be like, “Of COURSE you’re going to paint the carpet! Because it will look TOTALLY RAD!!”

You people — the people who think that — you get it. You are my people. Because it looks totally freakin’ rad.